I wrote a piece for SFF Book Bonanza – it’s live! Check it out here: [Book Buyer’s Remorse: How to Not Hate Yourself]

I’ve spent a chunk of time recently digging over graveyards, looking for corpses. Not literal ones, because that’d be weird. Rather, things I’ve tried, or friends have tried, in their businesses / hobbies / macrame class. I’m trying to find the solve for: why is there so much bad advice? Or maybe, why do seemingly smart people take bad advice without engaging their brain? People will say, “You know Richard, you should really do this thing, because this other really successful guy did it, and he’s rich!” (Assuming your name’s Richard). Or, perhaps the really rich guy will hop on stage, and say, “I’ve done this stuff, and it’s amazing!” There’s not a problem with these statements necessarily, but they don’t go far enough. They are eminence-based, rather than evidence-based, and this is a tricky wee beast, because looking at Read More …

I fan emailed me today, asking a simple question: how does one fight off locust swarms? You’ve come to the right place*. Here’s what I said. So, locust swarms: this is tricky, and tbh I’ve given it some thought 😊 There was a terrible movie aways back called something like, Attack of the Killer Bees. In the movie they try all manner of nonsense, like using flamethrowers (effective in bursts, but insufficient against the horde). This got me thinking, how would you deal with it? SCIENCE. Locusts are insects, and insects need to breathe – lots of chemicals solve this problem. Aerosolize some carbaryl or similar agent, and boom, all the locusts die. But wait. That also kills the other insects. Not great. Turns out there’s a vineyard (citation needed) in Italy (citation needed) experimenting with a new system that’s Read More …